MUNDA – Museo nazionale d’Abruzzo, L’Aquila

At the Museo Nazionale d’Abruzzo, established in the early 1950s, the L’Aquila collections of the Civic Museum and the Diocesan Museum merged, to form, through mutual integration, a single complex, highly representative of Abruzzese art and notably enhanced by the monumental prestige and the remarkable potential offered by the new museum location. The works, which included many of the most significant documents of regional art, from evocative medieval icons and wooden sculptures, to masterpieces of the Renaissance age, such as the processional cross of the Cathedral of L’Aquila by Nicola da Guardiagrele and the fully rounded sculpture of St. Sebastian by Silvestro dell’Aquila, were arranged in a series of large rooms on the first floor of the eastern building wing, corresponding to the façade. Subsequently, on the second floor, a selected series of works from the 16th to the 18th century was exhibited. In 1975, the museum received as a custodial deposit the substantial legacy of Marquis Francesco Cappelli, characterized by a significant core of paintings by Mattia Preti. The archaeological section, transferred from the Civic Museum, was set up in the South-East bastion: the first core of the current collection is the result of a donation from the fund passionately assembled by Prince Francesco Caracciolo in his palace in Barisciano around the mid-18th century. Other important finds come from 19th-century excavations conducted by Antonio De Nino and Nicolò Persichetti, especially in the area of ancient Amiternum. In 1926, artifacts from Alba Fucens and Guardia Vomano were deposited in the Fortress. Alongside the so-called Amiternum Calendar, of exceptional importance, there are pieces of considerable interest: reliefs depicting a Funeral Ceremony and a Gladiatorial Game, a sepulchral stele shaped like a serpent, and a varied collection of inscriptions with a celebratory or funerary character. In the North-East bastion, the impressive fossil find discovered in 1954 near Scoppito has been reconstructed. In recent years, the Museum has been subject to a general and substantial intervention aimed at restoring the museum heritage, revising exhibitions, and significantly enhancing museographic structures thanks to the installation of new lighting and air conditioning systems and the preparation of a valid array of educational aids and services.